Ettore Scola, Italian film director and screenwriter, dies at 84

Ettore Scola has died at 84. His work includes A Special Day, a 1977 film featuring Marcello Mastroianni and Sophia Loren. Photograph: Antonio Calanni/AP

The film director Ettore Scola, a leading figure in Italian cinema for more than three decades, has died at the age of 84.

Scola’s work included A Special Day, a 1977 Golden Globe-winning and Oscar-nominated movie featuring Marcello Mastroianni as a persecuted radio journalist and Sophia Loren as a sentimental housewife, meeting against a backdrop of rising fascism in 1930s Italy.

He also wrote and directed We All Loved Each Other So Much, a 1974 comedy-drama about the postwar lives of three partisans fighting for the liberation of Italy. The film won the Golden prize at the ninth Moscow international film festival in 1975. The following year he won best director at the Cannes film festival for The Good, Bad and Ugly.

Scola died on Tuesday in Rome’s polyclinic, where he had been in a coma since Sunday after being admitted to the hospital’s cardiac surgery unit, press reports said.

The Italian prime minister, Matteo Renzi, paid tribute to Scola, saying he was a “master” of the screen “with an ability that was as incredible as it was razor-sharp in reading Italy, its society and the changes it went through”.

On Twitter, Renzi wrote that his death “leaves a huge void in Italian culture”.

Dario Franceschini, the Italian minister of culture and tourism, tweeted: “A great teacher, an amazing man, young until the last day of his life.”

The French film and television actor Frédérique Bel shared an image of Loren and Mastroianni in A Special Day.

After entering the movie industry as a screenwriter in 1953, Scola got his first chance as director in 1964 with Let’s Talk About Women, an innovative work of nine vignettes in which Vittorio Gassman plays different characters who seduce women.

He directed 41 films over nearly 40 years, according to the Internet Movie Database.

Paolo Mereghetti, the Corriere della Sera’s cinema critic, said Scola had been a distinctive “political” voice in Italy’s postwar cinema.

A former member of the Italian Communist party, Scola even became minister of culture in a “shadow” cabinet set up by party leaders in 1989.

“He understood where Italy was going, and few cinema directors have that insight,” Mereghetti told the television channel Sky TG24.

Italian film director Ettore Scola dies at 84

ROME: Film director Ettore Scola, a leading figure in Italian cinema for more than three decades, died on Tuesday at the age of 84, local media reported.Scola’s work included « A Special Day, » a 1977 Oscar-nominated movie featuring Marcello Mastroianni as a persecuted radio journalist and Sophia Loren as a sentimental housewife, meeting against a backdrop of rising fascism in 1930s Italy.

Ettore Scola with Margaretha von Trotta on April 29, 1987 (Image: AP)

He also wrote and directed « We All Loved Each Other So Much, » a 1974 comedy-drama about the post-war lives of three partisans fighting for the liberation of Italy.

Scola died in Rome’s polyclinic, where he had been in a coma since Sunday after being admitted to the hospital’s cardiac surgery unit, press reports said.

Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi paid tribute to Scola, saying he was a « master » of the screen, « with an ability that was as incredible as it was razor-sharp in reading Italy, its society and the changes it went through. »

Ettore Scola at the 35th Cannes film festival (Image: AP)

After entering the movie industry as a screenwriter in 1953, Scola got his first chance as director in 1964 with « Let’s Talk About Women » — an innovative work of nine vignettes in which Vittorio Gassman plays different characters who seduce women.

He directed 41 films over nearly 40 years, according to the Internet movie database, IMDb.

A former member of the Italian Communist Party, Scola even became minister of culture in a « shadow » cabinet set up by party leaders in 1989.Scola even became minister of culture in a « shadow » cabinet set up by party leaders in 1989.

« He understood where Italy was going, and few cinema directors have that insight, » Mereghetti told the television channel Sky.

Ettore Scola, Italian Film Director, Dies at 84

He had been in a coma since Sunday after being admitted to the cardiac surgery unit of a hospital in Rome, according to the reports.

Mr Scola’s work included A Special Day, a 1977 Oscar-nominated movie featuring Marcello Mastroianni as a persecuted radio journalist and Sophia Loren as a sentimental housewife, meeting against the backdrop of rising fascism in Italy of the 1930s.

« We All Loved Each Other So Much (C’eravamo tanto amati), was a wide fresco of post-World War II Italian life and politics, and dedicated to fellow director Vittorio De Sica ».

Italian premier Matteo Renzi said Scola had an incomparable way of reading Italian society and that his death « leaves an enormous hole in Italian culture ».

Scola directed 41 films and wrote the screenplay for nearly 90 movies. He was named Best Director by the Cannes Film Festival in 1974 and served on the festival’s jury in 1988.

The scene where the two actors move between sheets drying in the sun on the terrace of the apartment block where they are staying is one of the most handsome scenes in Italian cinema, film critic Francesco Castelnuovo said.

I could not believe my eyes when I heard the news! Paul Walker is no longer with us at only 40 years old 😦 And ironically he was killed in a car crash accident when he was not the driver. It was his friend who was driving and they died in the Los Angeles county. It’s a really sad news. I like the franchise « Fast and Furious » (« Rapide et Dangereux » for my friends in Quebec and French-Canadian). I saw the latest « Fast and Furious 6 » last June and I honestly enjoyed it. It will be very hard without him now. RIP Paul Walker, a great actor leaves us. Big thoughts to his family, friends, the whole team of « Fast and Furious ». We will not forget him that’s for sure and now we must move forward.

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